Promoting Community Reintegration for Young Adults With Stroke

The Chinese version of the Reintegration to Normal Living Index (RNIL-C) will be used to assess the participants' level of community reintegration. It consists of 11 items in eight domains: mobility, self-care, daily work and school activity, recreational and social activities, family roles, personal relationships, presentation of self to others and general coping skills. Participants are asked to rate the extent to which each item describes their situation on a scale from 1 - 'a small extent' to 5 - 'a great extent'. The total score is calculated by summation and normalised to give 100 with a total score range of 25 to 100. A higher score indicates better community reintegration. The RNIL-C has high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.92) and good convergent validity.

The Chinese version of the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) will be used to measure participants' depressive symptoms. Studies support its utility in younger adults (>18 years old), with good diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. Each item represents symptoms of depression and describes a participant's condition in the preceding week; the participants answer each item with either 'yes' or 'no'. All items are summed (total score 0-15). A score of six or greater is a cutoff for depression. The GDS has a Cronbach's alpha of 0.78.

Participants' health-related quality of life (HRQoL) will be measured by the Chinese version of the Stroke-Specific Quality of Life Scale (SSQOL-C), which has 47 items with 11 domains ranging from physical to psychosocial and participation. The items are about the health conditions of the participants and how much difficulty the participants have when doing everyday self-care tasks. The items are scored from 1 - 'strongly disagree/cannot do it' to 5 - 'strongly agree/no trouble'. Total score is yielded by summing all item scores (range 47-235): the higher the score, the higher the HRQoL. It has acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.63-0.93) and convergent validity.

The 11-item Chinese version of the Stroke Self-management Behaviours Performance Scale (SSBPS-C) will be adopted to assess participants' satisfaction with the performance of self-management behaviours. Each item is scored using a range from 0 - 'very dissatisfied' to 10 - 'very satisfied'. Taking the sum of all item scores yields one total score (range 0-110), and the higher the score, the higher the satisfaction. This scale has a Cronbach's alpha of 0.93.

The Chinese version of the Stroke Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (SSEQ-C) will be used to measure self-efficacy. It has 13 items, each is scored using a scale from 0 - 'no confidence' to 10 - 'very confident'. The items are about the participants' perceived extent of confidence in doing everyday activities and self-management tasks. A total score is yielded by summing all items (range 0-130). A higher total score represents higher self-efficacy. The scale has acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.92) and convergent validity.

The Chinese version of the Stroke Self-management Outcome Expectation Scale (SSOES-C) will be used to measure the participants' outcome expectation beliefs. It has 11 items, each rated using a scale from 0 - 'strongly disagree' to 10 - 'strongly agree'. The score of each item indicates the participants' confidence in the expected outcomes to occur. All item scores will be calculated by summation (total score 0-110). A higher score represents higher outcome expectations. This scale has good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.94).